I went to a college quidditch team practice. It was a lot harder than I thought.

Like most muggles, I’ve never played quidditch.

(For the uninitiated, “muggle” means non-magical person and “quidditch” is a sport that Harry Potter played while flying on a broomstick.)

But that small little fact didn’t stop me — a pretty avid Harry Potter reader/stan — from trying out for UC Berkeley’s quidditch team, which recreates the mechanics of the sport, sadly without the magic elements.

The person throwing me what’s called a “quaffle” (actually a slightly deflated volleyball) looked at me to make sure I’m ready. I gave them a head nod and grip my “broom” (a PVC pipe), ready to run.

“GO!”

I run 20 feet and turn back to catch the ball. Success!

But as I take my next step, I get decked by team captain Dara Gaeuman, fall to the ground, drop the quaffle, re-grab the quaffle, get back up, run over to the hoop and score. It’s a triumphant moment for my post-healthy, 33-year-old self, regardless of the fact that this a drill. On the first day of practice. Of a sport I’m playing for the first time. With people who likely weren’t born when the first Harry Potter book came out.

OK, so let’s back up a second: In J.K. Rowling’s books, quidditch players fly around on brooms either trying to throw balls (‘quaffles’, remember?) through hoops to score points, while also trying to stop opposing players from scoring, until finally a tiny flying golden ball called the ‘snitch’ is released and one player from each team called a ‘seeker’ tries to capture the snitch to win 150 points and end the game. The team with the highest point tally at the end of the game wins (almost always the team that catches the snitch).

So how did that version become what I’m playing today in Berkeley? Well, in 2005, a pair of students at Middlebury College — Xander Manshel and Alex Benepe — translated quidditch into a non-flying sport. The game used to be played on wooden brooms until a few years ago when the game got too rough.

There are still chasers (offensive players), beaters (defenders), seekers, keepers (like a goalie in hockey or soccer) and quaffles (again the balls, stay with me here) and bludgers (slightly deflated dodgeballs). But here the snitch is actually a person with sock-like pouch attached to their lower back that has to be snatched by the seekers, while the snitch tries to evade them.

Cal’s quidditch club team started in 2009 and has become one of the top tier college teams in the US. And, although it’s a club team, it carries some of the spirit of the school’s Division I programs. Most famously, team members often practice in blue t-shirts with yellow lettering that say “Voldemort Went to Stanford,” which would actually mean he went to Hogwarts, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Almost 15 years after its inception, real-world quidditch has grown into a global phenomenon, with an International Quidditch Association (IQA) that has a World Cup every two years, a couple of semi-pro leagues, several regional and national leagues and more than 150 colleges and universities with club teams.

During practice, Chanun Ong, a sophomore returning for his second year on the team, tells a freshman, “I wasn’t a big Harry Potter fan, but this sport is pretty legit.”

Legit or not, the sport isn’t only attracting people who want to cosplay in robes and wizard hats anymore. Former varsity high school athletes with little prior knowledge of the “Potterverse” are now manning PVC pipes.

Which is harder than it sounds for someone whose exercise over the past few years included sporadic yoga classes and playing goalkeeper for an intramural soccer team (see: me).

Nonetheless, we break into two groups to run drills. I go with the beaters because, well, defense wins championships. A few of the more experienced players demonstrate proper technique.

“Aim below the knees, so it’s harder for the other beater to catch the ball,” one person says. “Scrunch your body down if someone is about to throw a bludger at you, so you’re a harder target to hit,” another adds.

Cal’s quidditch players take practice seriously, but the team is a mix of people who are in it 1) for the Harry Potter lore, 2) for the pursuit of athletic supremacy, 3) for the camaraderie of joining a college club, or 4) all of the above. There’s space for everyone who wants to join the team, and even a designation between competitive and social members.

“We do things together that are totally unrelated to the sport itself,” Gaeuman says. “Like we have game nights, we have other social activities, we go ice skating, and things outside of the sport for people who don’t feel as athletic or who feel more connected to the nerd side of the club. We have space for all of them.”

There are a few social members at the first practice, but most of the people who watch as the two-hour practice went on were passersby trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

With about 30 minutes left in the practice, my body goes into full-on rebellion. I’m out of breath, I’m fighting off cramps, I’m tired – which is the point where, with 30 minutes to go in practice, I stop the charade of intending to compete and sit cross-legged and watched the rest of the practice.

Hamstrings sore, drenched with sweat and gassed, I later tell my editor I’ll need to work from home for the next two days because my body is no longer cooperating.

As most team sports do, the practice concluded with some encouraging words in a huddle. They broke their huddle with the cheer “Keep snitchin’ Bears.”

Keep snitchin’, indeed.

Drew Costley is a Editorial Assistant at SFGATE. Email: drew.costley@sfgate.com